


with my feelings on fire (guess i'm a bad liar)

by Baebadook



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, benji is a stressed mess honestly same, pretty mild depictions of violence and weapons, soft spy boys!!!, song lyric based fic because I'm super predictable like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 06:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18441137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baebadook/pseuds/Baebadook
Summary: Getting stuck together in increasingly tiny places was just another Saturday afternoon for them now. And he was trying, not for the first time that month, to avoid thinking about just how cozy they were. How easy it would be to kiss one another.Basically five times Ethan and Benji get stuck together or in exceedingly teeny spaces.





	with my feelings on fire (guess i'm a bad liar)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! I'm pretty brand new to the fandom and I'm having a blast. And with that this is obviously my first foray into writing these characters so I hope I did okay!
> 
> Lyrics in the title and throughout the fic are from Bad Liar by Selena Gomez.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Ooh you're taking up a fraction of my mind  
_ _Ooooh every time I watch you serpentine_

“So, how do you like being out on the field, Benji?” Ethan asked, tone light and even, like it was a regular Tuesday and he was inquiring about the weather or latest sports event.

Benji paused his squirming and found himself laughing. “I would say that it's better than being _tied down_ at the office but, well.” He shrugged his shoulders, at least as much as he could with their limited mobility.

His back was to him so he couldn't see his expression, but Ethan chuckled warmly at that and Benji found himself smiling despite the predicament they were currently in. He then promptly hissed and yanked at his wrists when a sharp knife poked into the skin of his hands hard enough to sting, Ethan muttering a string of apologies seconds later.

Benji couldn't wait for this operation to be finally over so he could finally get home, tend to his rope burns, have a drink, and then pass out in bed. Probably not in that order.

He passively wondered how long it'd take for Ethan to slice through both of their ropes and if they could catch up in time to stop the bad guy's nefarious plans.

Honestly, the mark they had been after had been regarded as an intelligent scholar in his field of work, but his road to Evil Villainy had been ridden with sloppy mistakes. First of all, it'd been entirely too easy for them to locate his base of operations, and not intentionally as a trap either- situation notwithstanding.

Secondly, him and his baddies hadn't even bothered to pat them down for any weapons they may or may not be concealing. He had just tied them up back-to-back against a pair of old rickety chairs and called it a day; it was a recipe for disaster. It was as if he had taken a page straight from the _Villains for Dummies_ handbook and then ran with it.

And the _monologuing_ , gods above. Halfway through his Mandatory Origin Story Benji desperately wished that the bomb he had rigged to explode would go off right then and there, killing them all instantly. How he wished for it to be like in the Bond movies, where the villain would leave with his henchmen and let Bond and his mistress lower slowly into a tank of sharks only for them to easily escape at the last minute.

Ethan certainly did have some Bond-like qualities; handsome in (and out of) suits, suave and easy going. Sharpshooter with a gun, too. Wait, did that mean _he_ currently played the role of Bond Girl? He could feel face and ears warm lightly at that intrusive thought. He did _not_ have the balance necessary for heels.

Needless to say, they'd all have a right laugh about the whole thing when it was all said and done.

“Comms are still down I take it?” Ethan said, grunting slightly as he sawed away at his binds.

“Seems like. I haven't heard a peep from Luther or Jane since we stepped into the building.” Seriously, they knew enough to jam their radio signals, but not how to conceal their address from showing up on Google Maps? The inconsistency of it all boggled the mind.

“Aaaand- got it!” Ethan proclaimed, wrenching his hands free just as the door to their room, quite literally, burst open. Jane stood on the other side, gun at the ready, the guy in charge of guarding their door passed out at her feet. There was a small cut bleeding above her left eyebrow, but other than that and a few scrapes and bruises she looked fine.

“Hey, speak of the devil!” Benji said, more than a little glad to see that not only was she alive and well, but also there to help them out. She checked the perimeter before jogging over to help Ethan take care of Benji's rope.

“I almost had that, you know,” Ethan told her, ever the tease.

“Mmhhm, I'm sure you did.”

* * *

The second time that it happened, it was just as confining, but Benji was glad that they at least had _some_ mobility of their arms.

It had been at a party set up by a mogul that used his business as a front for his real operations: weapons trading, drug and sex trafficking, and as of late nukes, apparently. In for a penny, in for a pound he supposed.

Halfway through the party, Ethan and Benji broke away from the party to sneak their way up to the second floor. The upstairs was off-limits of course, and what better place to hide your illicit activities than in some safe tucked away from the guests?

They had been quietly creeping past sets and sets of doors in search of said safe, or study, or _whatever_ might be up there, when a door at the end of the hall had started to open. The both of them froze in place, sharing a startled look, and on a whim Ethan took a chance and yanked them both into the nearest unlocked door he could find.

The good news was that it had been empty, and that they had made it through unseen. The bad news, though, was that it was the smallest utility closet ever know to man, and the door was jammed. No amount of banging or shaking seemed to do anything, especially when they were on a _stealth op_ . No matter how loud the music might be, they couldn’t risk blowing their cover an letting their mark escape _again_.

When they relayed this rather unfortunate piece of information back to the van, Brandt laughed so goddamn hard it sounded like he was about to piss himself or throw up. Either way, Benji wasn’t gonna clean that mess up

“Jesus, what would you guys do without us, honestly,” Brandt managed to get out, in between various giggles. Benji snorted.

“Says the guy in the van.”

“Eh, semantics.”

“I’ll come relive you guys from your situation when I get the chance,” Jane piped up, seemingly trying to keep back her own laughter. She had been floating around downstairs, acting the part of dazzled party guest while she kept an eye out for anyone that might make a break for the stairs.

“You’re amazing as always, Peacock,” Ethan said, and honestly at this point Benji was 90% sure he was fucking with them. Pheasant-themed code names? That, or Ethan had finally ran out of ideas and turned to the Discovery Channel as his only hope. At this point both of them seemed equally viable.

“We should've given someone _else_ on our team that name, then at least the second part of it would be correct.” Benji muttered, obviously loud enough that it would be picked up on the comms.

“I heard that, dick.”

“I know you did-” Ethan gripped one of his wrists and shushed him lightly, and Benji could tell that he was focusing on listening to the sounds outside of the hallway. Not that he knew how he could possibly hear anything out there, with the steady thumping of the muffled bass coming from downstairs. Perhaps that was the secret to conducting shady business deal these days- under the guise of heavy EDM songs.

He strained to hear something, anything, and found himself subconsciously holding his breath. It was pitch black in the glorified cubby they called a hall closet, save for the thin sliver of light bleeding through the crack underneath the bottom of the door. It was at that moment that he realized just how close they were to one another.

Ethan still had a vice grip on his wrist, and they were pressed against one another so tightly he could practically feel every inch of him. And boy, was _that_ a thought he didn't need to linger on.

“I think they went downstairs.” Ethan finally said, breaking the silence that had steadily begun to build between the two. He heard shifting, and then he felt the warm puff of his breath, signifying that Ethan had turned his head away from the door to look at him. Or his general direction, at the very least. Benji swallowed.

“Well this has been quite the eventful day, hasn’t it?” And there he went, into Babble Mode. He only hoped that Ethan would forcibly cover his mouth before he said anything too embarrassing.

Ethan laughed softly, “You could say that again.”

“And this is quite the tight squeeze init? Last time I was in the closet was the beginning of secondary school.” He laughed weakly at his own joke, and could hear the wondrous sounds of Brandt huffing the most melodramatic of sighs in his ear.

“Really?” Ethan said, tone sounding as if he was trying to process this information correctly, and Benji suddenly clamped his mouth shut quick enough that his teeth clacked together

Had he just accidentally, unknowingly came out to Ethan Hunt trapped together in a _closet_ of all places?

 _Nooo_ , surely not. He’d definitely mentioned going on to dates with guys in passing, at least around the office. Then again, Ethan was always super busy, saving the world and all that good stuff or, well, serving time in jail. Usually for doing said world saving.

Well this night was just getting better by the second wasn't it?

“Ah, I'm sorry. I've made things awkward now haven't I?”

“Benji.”

“I just have trouble shutting off sometimes you know and-”

“Benji.”

“I just really need to get a lid on this whole thi-”

“ _Benji_ .” Benji went quiet once more when he felt Ethan's hand, _still clutching his wrist_ , give him a squeeze.

“Yeah?”

“You're good, we're all good.”

“Ah.” God, and it felt as if he had gotten even closer to Ethan now, if that was even possible anymore. He could feel the heat from his face, and if he moved his knee just so it'd be right between Ethan's legs. The proximity was as intoxicating as it was infuriating.

And as he licked his lips, suddenly dry, he could tell he was about to make a very stupid decision.

Just as he ducked his head down to close the distance to where he thought Ethan's mouth was- “Guys you’ve got someone coming up the stairs,” and that was the only warning they got before the door they were pressed against was suddenly wrenched out from underneath them.

The both hit the floor in a tangled mess of limbs, and Benji was pretty sure he accidentally elbowed Ethan in the stomach judging by the way he wheezed on impact.

“Sorry.” He rolled off to the side to give his internal organs a break, but also to get a glimpse at their unsuspecting intruder. A hand traveled down to where he kept a knife concealed (he had learned from the first time!) just in case things got hairy.

Thankfully the stranger didn’t seem to have a gun; in fact he appeared to be a normal party-goer, just as perplexed about the situation as they were. A little tipsy too, to boot.

“Uhh, I was trying to find the bathroom?” He said.

Out of the corner of his eye he could already see Ethan turning on the charm as he stood up, pulling Benji with him.

“Sorry about that. I think it’s just down the hall.” He turned the grin to Benji and looped an arm around his waist. “We should get back to the party now, honey.”

“Uh- right! Absolutely, darling.” They meandered a bit, until the stranger was out of sight, and Benji let out a sigh he hadn’t known he was holding.

“That was close.”

Ethan still had his arm around his waist, and he conveniently elected not to bring it up.

* * *

_Oh I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin'_  
_I'm tryin', I'm tryin'_  
_Oh tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin'_  
_I'm tryin', I'm tryin'_  
_Not to think about you_  
_No, no, no, no_  
_Not to think about you  
No, no, no, no_

If he thought the supply closet was as small as it got, then clearly the universe what out to prove him wrong.

Benji grunted, and tried to shift away from a hard object that was persistently poking him in the side, but Ethan was on top of him, so that proved quite impossible.

“You okay?” Ethan asked, bless him.

“Well no, but yes, thank you for asking.”

He winced as the both of them were shoved against the hatch of the car, their driver apparently far too impatient to obey the laws of the road. His shoulder hurt.

Their attempt to get the drop on the big bad of the week was cut short prematurely when, despite all their best countermeasures, a video camera tipped them off to their arrival, and their mark fled the scene early. What greeted them instead, was a very _very_ angry bodyguard who looked like he ate metal and shat nails.

Seriously, where did they find these guys; Linkedin for Criminals?

They put forth a valiant effort- Ethan the most if he was being honest, but it didn’t take long for Ol Biggen to make short work of them. He stripped them of their supplies, tossed Benji into the trunk of a beat up Sedan, landing hard on his shoulder, before Ethan landed on _him_ , and now they were being sped off to god-knows-where.

Was it possible to sprain your shoulder? He supposed so; tennis and American football players probably did it all the time. He realized he was zoning out and snapped back to attention, glad that Ethan couldn’t see how glazed over his expression had probably gotten.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“Working on it.”

“Ah yeah, sure. Of course.” That answer never comforted him, no matter how many times he heard it.

The trunk was dark, because that was just a given, and the only sounds were their breathing and the noises from outside of the car. The wind, other cars zipping past, and the occasional honk or two.

Getting stuck together in increasingly tiny places was just another Saturday afternoon for them now. And he was trying, not for the first time that month, to avoid thinking about just how cozy they were. How easy it would be to kiss one another.

“We’re on an interstate, or highway.” Benji felt the need to say, therefore keeping his mouth occupied from what he _actually_ wanted to be doing.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We haven’t slowed down for miles, from what I can tell, so we haven’t passed by any speed zones. And unless we’re getting increasingly lucky with the traffic lights, we’ve yet to come to a complete stop, either.” Ethan probably knew all of this already; calculated it within minutes of their impromptu car ride, but Benji pushed on anyways.

“Also we haven’t taken any turns either, not since we left the warehouse, so we’re obviously on a long stretch of road heading to the middle of fucking _nowhere_ without any way to contact Luther or Will. It’s great really, just peachy.”

Ethan patted him on the hip, because that was the angle his arm was trapped at. “It’s okay Benji, we’re gonna get out of this just fine.”

“And how, pray tell, are we going to accomplish this?”

“First off, help me look for any wires that run along the driver side of the car.” Benji blinked up at him, or what he assumed was up towards him, before it clicked.

“Oh! Trunk release, you’re a genius.” He could practically feel Ethan’s radiating grin from here and he rolled his eyes. And then, his next thought hit him like a freight train.

“W-w-w-wait, you’re not suggesting we actually _roll out of the trunk onto the open freeway_ , are you Ethan? Because you might have a death wish, and you might have better luck with these things, but if _I_ try it they’re going to be scrapping me off the pavement with shovels.”

He could feel Ethan laughing softly against his frame and huffed. “Seriously- it could happen.”

“C’mon, Benji. I told you I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, okay? Besides, it’s just a worst case scenario.

“Right, well, we’ll say that’s Plan C. Or D, maybe.”

“Of course.”

After what seemed like hours to him at least, the car eased onto gravel road and eventually came to a stop. They both held their breaths for a moment, and was it bad that this was becoming the routine for them?

Their captor stepped out of the car, rocks crunching under his boots, and then they heard the back left passenger door open.

Ethan tapped a rhythm onto his thigh to get his attention.

“On the count of three, we shift towards the front of the car, okay? 1, 2, -”

It worked, at least a little bit. The flooring that Benji had been pressed against was the most typical of places that a trunk release cable would be, and he really hoped that was the case for their sakes. There was a bit of space to pull up the carpet flooring now, but surprise surprise, they were pressed even closer together.

This was his life now; Ethan and him were slowly merging into one being at this rate. He’d probably _die_ pressed against him. Honestly though, that didn’t sound like the worst death ever come to think about it.

Any thought process he might’ve had came to a shuddering halt when Ethan slid a hand across his hip and down behind him. He was obviously going for the floor panel, but damn if that didn’t make him melt like butter.

There was fiddling, and him breathing into his ear certainly didn’t help matters much, but soon Ethan let out a noise of triumph before the trunk popped open without a sound.

Several excruciating minutes of pain later Benji wiped a splotch of blood from his brow before it could drip into his eye, hissing when his bruised knuckles ran along the cut. Biggen laid across the ground, knocked out hopefully for the foreseeable future. He really didn’t think he could handle going toe-to-toe with him again- his body hurt enough as it was.

He dropped down to his knees beside of Ethan, not caring how the gravel cut into his skin as he looked over him.

“Are you okay? How’s your chest?”

Ethan waved him off lightly with a hand. He had taken a pretty brutal blow to the chest earlier, enough to knock him out of commision for a while. He had a bit of a wheeze when he breathed in and out.

“I’m fine, he just knocked the wind out of me. What about you?”

He glanced to the bodyguard, and then back to him.

“Never better.”

And Ethan gave him that smile of his, the kind that was seemingly for when Benji accomplished something amazing, and it made his stomach churn and his head feel light in all the best possible ways.

“Let’s finish this up and go home, yeah?”

“Sounds good.”

* * *

_Oh I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin'_  
_I'm tryin', I'm tryin'_  
_Oh tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin'_  
_I'm tryin', I'm tryin'_  
_Not to give in to you_  
_No, no, no, no_  
_Not to give in to you  
No, no, no, no_

Ethan hadn’t been around for the past few weeks, off in Quebec tracking down someone with a penchant for bombing cities while Benji tried not to worry too much. With no field missions of his own to work on for a while, he did what he did best and parsed data and wrote emails and ran miles and everything else under the sun to keep his mind off of things. Finally Gina came by with the offer of lunch before he had completely gone mad.

She was a nice, someone he might even consider a friend, and he had gotten the pleasure of working with her on the odd op here and there. Baker of cookies and bringer of warm smiles, and as Benji had learned first hand, lethal with a pocket knife and sailor’s knots.

“I think that it’s fate. It must be.” Gina posited, after he had recounted the various situations where he and Ethan had ended up stuck together in some capacity. She nodded to herself in an almost sage-like manner, pleased with the conclusion she had drawn.

He snorted. “Fate, you say? And why would fate be doing this to us exactly?”

“Obviously the universe wants you to fuck.” Benji sputtered through his sip of beer, grimacing as some of it found its way up his nasal canals. Yeah, that stinging wasn't leaving for a while.

“I'm sorry, _what_?” He asked, like he hadn't heard it correctly. Gina simply shrugged, completely unapologetic.

“I mean, you like him right?”

He shrugged, even though it rather seemed like a rhetorical question.

“So? What’s stopping you?”

“A lot of things, honestly!” He said, voice an octave or two higher than normal as he gestured and sloshed beer over the rim of his bottle, “he’s way out of my league, I don’t even know if he likes men, I don’t know if he’s ready to be in a relationship again. And oh yes did I mention I don’t know if he likes men?”

Gina sat back in her seat, chair legs creaking ominously when she leaned backwards, thinking.

“Okay, how about this then,” she rocked forward once again and pressed her elbows into the table. “What if you kiss him.”

“Wha- I can’t just k-” he ducked forward and lowered his voice, “I can’t just kiss him! What if he gets mad?”

Gina sent him a withering look that he was becoming quite acquainted with.

“Ethan Hunt would rather jump into a pit of piranhas than hurt you, so I highly doubt he’d get mad, or shove you, or anything else that overactive brain of yours has cooked up.”

She had a point. Still, he couldn’t foresee that particular scenario ending in anything but heartache. He slumped down in his seat, rolling the bottle of beer he polished off between his hands.

“Look. Say you plant one on him the next time your trapped in closet together or something. What’s the worst that could happen, he says he doesn’t like you that way? Then case closed, now you know and you can move on, or whatever.”

“I don’t even know if there will be a next time for that.”

* * *

There was a next time.

Benji panted, biting out a slew of colorful curse words that would probably make the Pope blush as Ethan tugged him into a side street that was close by. A bullet smacked into the stone wall they had just been standing in front of not two seconds ago, spraying them with bits of powder and chunks of rock.

“Are you o-”

“ _No Ethan I am not okay!_ ” He hissed, rattling the handcuffs that shackled their wrists together for emphasis. It was pissing rain, they were being shot at, and they were _handcuffed together_. Thankfully not by both of their hands, otherwise they’d have some serious problems. They certainly weren’t an upgrade from the rope, he knew that much.

“Figured as much.”

Their comms crackled to life suddenly and Brandt was barking directions in their ears.

“If you guys don’t get a move on you’re gonna become Swiss cheese real quick.”

“Yeah well, directions would be lovely!” He shouted over the rapid gunfire. They took off at a sprint again, hand in hand so the metal of the cuffs wasn’t digging into their skin and leaving cuts.

“Continue down that road, take a right and then a left.”

They followed the directions to the T, dodging more bullets and occasionally returning fire when they could. There were just too many to make an actual dent.

“The safe house isn’t that far off now.”

Ethan skidded to a quick halt when they saw the shape of more mercenaries coming from the opposite direction, and it was Benji who pressed them into an enclosed space this time. They pushed backwards into the shadows between two houses, the tight squeeze too tiny to even be called an alleyway.

They waited, and waited. Their assailants passed by them by without a glance, shouting to each other to look for them. Finally, their voices faded amidst the rain until they were alone once more.

Ethan shook against him, and for a while he thought that perhaps he was shivering, they were drenched after all, but then he let out a snort and Benji realized he was laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

Ethan lifted his hands and brought Benji’s with it, gesturing to their surroundings with a grin.

“Here we are again. If we keep meeting like this people are going to talk.”

“What makes you think they aren’t, already?” He knew they were already, for a fact actually. Brandt had delightedly informed him one morning that there was a betting pool going around to boot.

“Touche”

* * *

The funniest thing about the situation was that they weren’t even out in the field this time.

Benji sighed heavily, and leaned against the metal wall of the elevator, bored out of his mind.

“What was the ETA on that mechanic again?”

Ethan checked his phone, “about forty minutes still.”

Benji groaned and slid down into a sitting position. You’d think that in a building full of the most technologically advanced equipment in the world, they’d be able to get a damn elevator moving. His phone was almost dead, so he couldn’t even play Candy Crush to pass the time.

“Hey, at least we aren’t getting shot at this time.” Ethan crossed over to his side and took a seat next to him. The room was a bit stifling without the air conditioner working. He had the sleeves to his shirt rolled up to his elbows and Benji felt a little dizzy just looking at him. He blamed the lack of circulation, yeah that was totally it.

“Yeah, that’s a silver lining I suppose.”

In fact the _only_ thing that was working was the sound system, so they had to endure the same looped elevator music over. And over. And over. And if they didn’t get out soon, there was a very high chance that Benji might just commit a murder.

“Do you think Hunleys gonna be pissed with us because we’re late for the meeting?”

“Oh without a doubt. But at least we have an alibi.”

That sat together in a comfortable silence for a while, enjoying each other’s company. They talked, because that was really all that they could do. About anything and everything under the sun. Little tidbits of things they didn’t know about each other, that they couldn’t really share while defusing a bomb or dangling from a helicopter among other life threatening things. It was nice, to share a moment like this. Stuck, but without all the constant shit that went on in their lives.

And all the while he kept thinking back to what Gina had said. They kept getting pressed into these types of situations. Even right now, they had subconsciously drifted closer to one another that their legs were touching. Maybe some cosmic deity out there really did want them to kiss. That, or he was finally going crazy. He was leaning a bit towards the latter. Even so, that stupid decision moment was rearing its head again.

“Ethan.” He interrupted him mid-sentence but he didn’t care that much at the moment. He had to commit, otherwise he’d just chicken out and probably never bring it up ever again.

“Yeah Benji?”

“Can I kiss you?” His heart leapt into his throat just as the words did. The world was still, for just a moment, as Ethan processed these words. And just when he thought he had really fucked everything up, he smiled.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Relief washed over him just like the pelting rain had not two weeks ago.

The angle was a bit wonky due to the way they were sitting and they bumped noses trying to close the distance, but at this stage it was quite obvious that neither gave a shit enough to move or get embarrassed by anything. Ethan had an arm around his waist in no time, while Benji slid a hand into Ethan’s hair. He was pleased to discover that his hair was just as fluffy and soft as he imagined it would be.

And the kiss. It felt incredible. Earth-shatteringly amazing. There weren’t enough words in the English dictionary to describe the feeling of Ethan’s lips on his. It was infinitely more intense than anything he’d ever felt before, more so than disarming bombs and fleeing from armed mercenaries combined.

Too soon it seemed they needed to break for air and Benji faintly noted that they were both lying on the floor now.

“That was-” Ethan broke off with a laugh, looking seriously disheveled. Kiss-swollen lips, mussed up hair and clothes. Needless to say, if it weren’t for the camera that was no doubt live, he would be doing some downright devilish things to and with this man. He probably looked just as undone and debauched, and that thought sent shivers down his spine like electricity.

“Yeah.”

“Kiss me again.”

And so he did.

 _Oh, with my feelings on fire  
_ _Guess I’m a bad liar_

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd so I apologize for any errors you may come across!
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to read my fic! Kudos and comments would be super appreciated if you're willing. <3
> 
> Come yell with me about Benthan things at baebadook.tumblr.com!


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